Nosferatu (word)
Encyclopedia
The name Nosferatu has been presented as a Romania
n word, synonym
ous with "vampire
". However, it seems to be largely a literary creation and its basis in Romanian folklore is uncertain.
's 1897 novel Dracula
and its unauthorised cinematic adaptation, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
(1922). Stoker identified his source for the term as 19th-century British
author and speaker Emily Gerard
. It is commonly thought that Gerard introduced the word into print in a magazine article and in her travelogue The Land Beyond the Forest; ("Land beyond the forest" is literally what Transylvania
means in Latin
; or, rather, "across/through the forest"). She merely refers to it as the Romanian
word for vampire
: "More decidedly evil is the nosferatu, or vampire, in which every Roumanian peasant believes as firmly as he does in Heaven or Hell." However, the word had already appeared in an 1865 journal article by Wilhelm Schmidt.
Nosferatu does not correspond to any readily identifiable existing word in the Romanian language in any historical phase (aside from that introduced by the novel and the films). Internal evidence in Dracula suggests that Stoker believed the term meant "not dead" in Romanian
, and thus he may have intended the word undead
to be a calque
of it.
Peter Haining
identifies an earlier source for nosferatu as "Roumanian Superstitions (1861)" by Heinrich von Wlislocki. However, Wlislocki seems only to have written in German
, and according to the Magyar Néprajzi Lexikon, Wlislocki was born in 1856 (d. 1907), which makes his authorship of an English
-titled 1861 source doubtful. Certain details of Haining's citation also conflict with David J. Skal
, so this citation seems unreliable. Skal identifies a similar reference to the word "nosferat" in an article by Wlislocki dating from 1896. Since this postdates Gerard and has a number of parallels to Gerard's work, Skal considers it likely that Wlislocki is derivative from Gerard. There is also evidence to suggest that Haining derived his citation for Roumanian Superstitions from a confused reading of an extract in Ernest Jones
's 1931 book, On the Nightmare.
Gerard's claim that nosferatu was Romanian might be incorrect. If the assumption is incorrect, then research into the etymology of the term needs to start by identifying the domain-language. A leading alternative etymology
is that the term originally came from the Greek
"nosophoros" (*νοσοφόρος), meaning disease-bearing. F. W. Murnau
's classic film Nosferatu strongly emphasizes this theme of disease, and Murnau's creative direction in the film may have been influenced by this etymology (or vice-versa).
However, several difficulties with this explanation should be noted. Gerard clearly identified the word as Romanian and proponents of the "nosophoros" etymology (as well as most other commentators) seem to have little doubt that this is correct, even though Gerard's limited familiarity with the language gives her little authority on that point. If this Romanian identification is taken to be correct, the first objection to the "nosophoros" etymology is that Romanian is a Romance language. While Romanian does have some words borrowed from Greek
, as do most European languages, Greek is generally considered to be only a minor contributor to the Romanian vocabulary—absent any other information, any given Romanian word is much more likely to be of Latin origin than Greek. Second, while *νοσοφόρος would be a regular compound according to the conventions of Greek morphology, the word itself is not known in any historical phases of the Greek language. That is to say, the word *νοσοφόρος simply is not known to have ever existed in Greek, which would seem to make the burden of proof rather high for proposing it to have been the original form of another word in an entirely different language. A single instance of a Greek word similar to *νοσοφόρος, νοσηφόρος ("nosēphoros"), is attested in fragments from a 2nd century AD work by Marcellus Sidetes
on medicine, but the supporting evidence for a relationship between this apparently very rare medical term and nosferatu is still very weak.
The glaring difficulty with the *νοσοφόρος etymology is that no source has ever presented an argument for it any more substantial than that the two words, one of which may not have even existed, are vaguely similar in sound and meaning. No derivation has been proposed that would accord with a regular derivational process, and no citations of any intermediate forms in primary sources have ever been presented.
In some versions of the "nosophoros" etymology, an intermediate form *nesufur-atu or sometimes *nosufur-atu is presented, but both the original source for this and the justification for it are unclear. This form is often indicated to be Slavonic
or Slavic. It is likely that either Old Church Slavonic
or the protolanguage Proto-Slavic is intended. As with *νοσοφόρος, this supposed Slavonic word does not appear to be attested in primary sources, which severely undermines the credibility of the argument.
Another common etymology suggests that the word meant "not breathing", which appears to be attempting to read a derivative of the Latin
verb spirare ("to breathe") as a second morpheme in nosferatu. Skal notes that this is "without basis in lexicography
", viewing all these etymological attempts with similar skepticism.
When looking at the individual sylables from a Latin
standpoint, the three syllables loosely translate to "we" (nos) or "our" (noster), wild beast/animal/wild animal/sea monster/beast of prey (fera), you (tu). When translating the following "you are our wild beast" into Latin
, you will get "nos/noster tu fera," and with simple truncation and rearrangement, it becomes "nosferatu."
A final possibility is that the form Gerard gave is a well-known Romanian term without the benefit of normalized spelling, or possibly a misinterpretation of the sounds of the word due to Gerard's limited familiarity with the language, or possibly a dialectical variant of the word. Two candidate words that have been put forth are necurat ("unclean", usually associated with the occult
) and nesuferit ("the insufferable"). The nominative masculine definite form of a Romanian noun
in the declension
to which both words belong takes the ending "-ul" or even the shortened "u", cause in Romanian "l" is usually lost in the process of speaking, so the definite forms necuratu, nesuferitu and nefârtatu are commonly encountered (translatable as "the unclean", "the insufferable one", and "the devil
", respectively).
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n word, synonym
Synonym
Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...
ous with "vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
". However, it seems to be largely a literary creation and its basis in Romanian folklore is uncertain.
Origins of the name
The etymological origins of the word, nosferatu, are difficult to determine. There is no doubt that it achieved popular currency through Bram StokerBram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
's 1897 novel Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
and its unauthorised cinematic adaptation, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
is a classic 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok...
(1922). Stoker identified his source for the term as 19th-century British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
author and speaker Emily Gerard
Emily Gerard
Emily Gerard was a nineteenth century author best known for the influence her collections of Transylvanian folklore had on Bram Stoker's Dracula...
. It is commonly thought that Gerard introduced the word into print in a magazine article and in her travelogue The Land Beyond the Forest; ("Land beyond the forest" is literally what Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
means in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
; or, rather, "across/through the forest"). She merely refers to it as the Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
word for vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
: "More decidedly evil is the nosferatu, or vampire, in which every Roumanian peasant believes as firmly as he does in Heaven or Hell." However, the word had already appeared in an 1865 journal article by Wilhelm Schmidt.
Nosferatu does not correspond to any readily identifiable existing word in the Romanian language in any historical phase (aside from that introduced by the novel and the films). Internal evidence in Dracula suggests that Stoker believed the term meant "not dead" in Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, and thus he may have intended the word undead
Undead
Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased and yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies...
to be a calque
Calque
In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...
of it.
Peter Haining
Peter Haining
Peter Alexander Haining was a British journalist, author and anthologist who lived and worked in Suffolk...
identifies an earlier source for nosferatu as "Roumanian Superstitions (1861)" by Heinrich von Wlislocki. However, Wlislocki seems only to have written in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and according to the Magyar Néprajzi Lexikon, Wlislocki was born in 1856 (d. 1907), which makes his authorship of an English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-titled 1861 source doubtful. Certain details of Haining's citation also conflict with David J. Skal
David J. Skal
David J. Skal is an American cultural historian known for his writings on horror films and horror literature.-Early life:...
, so this citation seems unreliable. Skal identifies a similar reference to the word "nosferat" in an article by Wlislocki dating from 1896. Since this postdates Gerard and has a number of parallels to Gerard's work, Skal considers it likely that Wlislocki is derivative from Gerard. There is also evidence to suggest that Haining derived his citation for Roumanian Superstitions from a confused reading of an extract in Ernest Jones
Ernest Jones
Alfred Ernest Jones was a British neurologist and psychoanalyst, and Sigmund Freud’s official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and became its leading exponent in the English-speaking world where, as President of both the British Psycho-Analytical...
's 1931 book, On the Nightmare.
Gerard's claim that nosferatu was Romanian might be incorrect. If the assumption is incorrect, then research into the etymology of the term needs to start by identifying the domain-language. A leading alternative etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
is that the term originally came from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
"nosophoros" (*νοσοφόρος), meaning disease-bearing. F. W. Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm "F. W." Murnau was one of the most influential German film directors of the silent era, and a prominent figure in the expressionist movement in German cinema during the 1920s...
's classic film Nosferatu strongly emphasizes this theme of disease, and Murnau's creative direction in the film may have been influenced by this etymology (or vice-versa).
However, several difficulties with this explanation should be noted. Gerard clearly identified the word as Romanian and proponents of the "nosophoros" etymology (as well as most other commentators) seem to have little doubt that this is correct, even though Gerard's limited familiarity with the language gives her little authority on that point. If this Romanian identification is taken to be correct, the first objection to the "nosophoros" etymology is that Romanian is a Romance language. While Romanian does have some words borrowed from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, as do most European languages, Greek is generally considered to be only a minor contributor to the Romanian vocabulary—absent any other information, any given Romanian word is much more likely to be of Latin origin than Greek. Second, while *νοσοφόρος would be a regular compound according to the conventions of Greek morphology, the word itself is not known in any historical phases of the Greek language. That is to say, the word *νοσοφόρος simply is not known to have ever existed in Greek, which would seem to make the burden of proof rather high for proposing it to have been the original form of another word in an entirely different language. A single instance of a Greek word similar to *νοσοφόρος, νοσηφόρος ("nosēphoros"), is attested in fragments from a 2nd century AD work by Marcellus Sidetes
Marcellus of Side
Marcellus of Side a native of Side in Pamphylia, was born towards the end of the 1st century, and lived during the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, 117-161...
on medicine, but the supporting evidence for a relationship between this apparently very rare medical term and nosferatu is still very weak.
The glaring difficulty with the *νοσοφόρος etymology is that no source has ever presented an argument for it any more substantial than that the two words, one of which may not have even existed, are vaguely similar in sound and meaning. No derivation has been proposed that would accord with a regular derivational process, and no citations of any intermediate forms in primary sources have ever been presented.
In some versions of the "nosophoros" etymology, an intermediate form *nesufur-atu or sometimes *nosufur-atu is presented, but both the original source for this and the justification for it are unclear. This form is often indicated to be Slavonic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
or Slavic. It is likely that either Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
or the protolanguage Proto-Slavic is intended. As with *νοσοφόρος, this supposed Slavonic word does not appear to be attested in primary sources, which severely undermines the credibility of the argument.
Another common etymology suggests that the word meant "not breathing", which appears to be attempting to read a derivative of the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
verb spirare ("to breathe") as a second morpheme in nosferatu. Skal notes that this is "without basis in lexicography
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
", viewing all these etymological attempts with similar skepticism.
When looking at the individual sylables from a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
standpoint, the three syllables loosely translate to "we" (nos) or "our" (noster), wild beast/animal/wild animal/sea monster/beast of prey (fera), you (tu). When translating the following "you are our wild beast" into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, you will get "nos/noster tu fera," and with simple truncation and rearrangement, it becomes "nosferatu."
A final possibility is that the form Gerard gave is a well-known Romanian term without the benefit of normalized spelling, or possibly a misinterpretation of the sounds of the word due to Gerard's limited familiarity with the language, or possibly a dialectical variant of the word. Two candidate words that have been put forth are necurat ("unclean", usually associated with the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
) and nesuferit ("the insufferable"). The nominative masculine definite form of a Romanian noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
in the declension
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
to which both words belong takes the ending "-ul" or even the shortened "u", cause in Romanian "l" is usually lost in the process of speaking, so the definite forms necuratu, nesuferitu and nefârtatu are commonly encountered (translatable as "the unclean", "the insufferable one", and "the devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
", respectively).
Literature
- Peter M. Kreuter, Vampirglaube in Südosteuropa. Berlin 2001 (presently the most comprehensive scholarly account of Romanian vampire lore)